The 7 Worst Things That Happened On YouTube This Year

It's been a great year! Oh wait... no. No it hasn't. Not even slightly.

2017 eh? It's about to be over and to be honest it can't come too soon. We recently counted down a list of the most iconic things that happened on YouTube this year, but even with those iconic happenings, there's no denying that by and large, this was an insane year on YouTube... and the world.

So let us dive into the myriads of awful things that happened on YouTube this year. Why are we doing this? Won't it just depress us? Stop asking questions. This is not question-asking time, this is list-reading time. Here we go:

1. Creepy 'kids' videos invaded the site

If you're out of the loop on this, allow me to drag you into the loop, (the loop is horrible by the way, please stay away from the loop).

Basically there are tons of channels on YouTube that cater to young children. They make bright, colourful, repetitive videos featuring popular (and curiously trademarked) characters like Spiderman and in the process rack up billions - yes billions with a 'b' - of views, because kids love watching things over and over and over again.

Toy freaks youtube channel.
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Sounds pretty innocent, right? WRONG. YOU ARE INCORRECT AND WRONG.

This is the internet, The Place Where Everything Is Bad™, and so of course these videos are actually secret fetish videos. Of course they are. We can't have nice things any more, this is 2017 - there are no more nice things. You want nice things? Go back to 2010 you nice-thing-loving freak, we don't have those any more.

Yep, as well as frequently being genuinely unsettling and creepy, a lot of these 'kids' videos also contained sexual elements, violence, blood. Some even tricked young viewers into sending in seemingly harmless videos, which actually played into obscure fetishes.

Remember when YouTube was mostly Rick Roll videos? I never thought we would look back on that as a better time.

2. JonTron lost his damn mind

Well, we say 'lost his mind' but that doesn't really cover it. It seems that Jon has always had some extreme political and social opinions and this year those views have either become stronger or he has decided to be more open about them (likely both).

It's a shame because when he's talking about games, he's great... It's just everything else that's not so fun.

3. Demonetisation savaged creators

This has been a hard year to be a YouTuber, particularly for those who have YouTube as their primary income source. Following the fallout from PewDiePie's 'death to all Jews' nonsense (more on that later), YouTube and the companies that advertise with it started taking a much closer look at which videos could be monetised.

youtube demonetisation.
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Now YouTubers are struggling with a system that appears to be way too harsh - and often plain nonsensical, when it comes to which videos can be demonetised. It's threatening the livlihoods of many creators - and the creative future of the site as a whole. No fun.

4. PewDiePie... I mean where do we start

Love or hate him, there's no denying that Felix has had a very bad year. Let's recap all the things that somehow happened in the space of a single year:

I mean, no matter how you slice it - this stuff ain't good. He still retains a loyal audience but his public perception, especially for people outside the YouTube bubble, is very poor.

It honestly seems like he will never be able to get back to a place of being a mainstream figure, which is sad because compared to the many actually bad people on YouTube, Felix has always come off as more a generally good person who just makes dumb decisions.

Except for the N-word outburst... that one is... hard to explain.

5. It's every day bro

The Paul brothers, however you feel about them, can praised for their business abilities. In 2017 they managed to almost completely dominate YouTube, which is no small feat.

What you can actively criticise them for, however, is this awful song:

6. The Xmas calendar drama

Never has an advent calendar caused so much debate and outrage. That's also true of 2017 because Zoella's advent calendar isn't an advent calendar because it has 12 days instead of 24.

Zoe Sugg, usually a pretty much bulletproof creator on account of her being a nice, extremely uncontroversial person, found herself at the centre of a storm after it was revealed that her 12 day 'xmas calendar' cost a whopping £50. This was compounded by the fact that the prizes inside included things like a pen and a small bag of confetti.

7. YouTube Rewind was meh

This one is definitely not as bad as some of the other things on this list, but we're putting it on here all the same. This year's YouTube Rewind is the most disliked installment ever, and it's not just due to the usual internet hate. This year's installment was pretty lifeless and seemed like an exercise in seeing how many YouTubers they could cram on screen at once.

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